Posted
by
timothyon Saturday May 31, 2014 @10:24AM
from the don't-call-me-a-spammer-that-was-a-long-time-ago dept.

The EU's new rule (the result of a court case published May 13) requiring that online businesses remove on request information that is "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant" has struck a chord with more than 12,000 individuals, a number that's rising fast. Other search engines, ISPs, and firms are sure to follow, but the most prominent reaction to the decision thus far, and one that will probably influence all the ones to come, is Google's implementation of an online form that users can submit to request that information related to them be deleted. The Daily Mail reports that the EU ruling "has already been criticised after early indications that around 12 per cent of applications were related to paedophilia. A further 30 per cent concern fraud and 20 per cent were about people's arrests or convictions"; we mentioned earlier this month one pedophile's request for anonymity. As the First Post story linked above puts it, the requirement that sites scrub their data on request puts nternet companies in the position of having to interpret the court’s broad criteria for information meeting the mandate's definition of "forgettable," "as well as developing criteria for distinguishing public figures from private individuals." Do you favor opt-out permissions for reporting facts linked to individuals? What data or opinions about themselves should people not be able to suppress? (Note: Google's form has this disclaimer: "We're working to finalize our implementation of removal requests under European data protection law as soon as possible. In the meantime, please fill out the form below and we will notify you when we start processing your request." That finalization may take some time, since there are 28 data-protection agencies across the EU to harmonize.)

And would that be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

Because "Three years ago, Fred was charged with child sex offences" might be a true statement, but it's a very different statement to "Three years ago, Fred was charged with child sex offences, but was unanimously found not guilty by a jury after the person pressing the charges turned out to be his ex-wife's best friend, who was subsequently convicted of perjury and attempting to pervert the course of justice after evidence emerged that she had paid all three of the prosecution's other witnesses to make co-ordinated false accusations against Fred."

I'm not sure anyone deserves to have long-past transgressions haunt them forever, even if they are reported factually. There are enough unwarranted prejudices in society, without someone struggling to get a job at 40 because the Internet never forgets that they were once cautioned for stealing a chocolate bar at the age of 14.

Either way, merely "This is the truth, so I may speak it without taking any responsibility for the consequences" has always been a horribly dangerous principle to support. Context is everything when it comes to reputations, and never more so than in the Internet age where reputations can last forever and reach all around the world.

I also think police and prosecutors should be held to libel and slander. When they raid a house and find a kitchen scale, they should not use biased terms such as "drug paraphernalia" that poisons the jury pool and reputation of the person they are investigating, in fact they and the prosecutor should not speak until trial and let it go there where the other side has an equal voice.

The trouble with libel and slander laws is that they are overwhelmingly used by those who are high profile public figures, where the potential damages they will win and the media coverage that will probably result might actually justify the insane costs of bringing a formal legal action under those laws.

For the other 99.99% of the population, the reality is that even if someone says something blatantly untrue that severely damages the victim's career, it still may not be worth bringing a case in a lot of ju

When they raid a house and find a kitchen scale, they should not use biased terms such as "drug paraphernalia" that poisons the jury pool and reputation of the person they are investigating,

I agree. Unfortunately, though, depending on your local jurisdiction, some common tools (like anything that looks like lab glassware) may automatically be defined as "drug precursors" or "paraphenalia." Texas has a particularly notorious [state.tx.us] set of regulations about this, which requires you to get a permit to own things like a basic boiling flask or Erlenmeyer. They even include things like a "filter funnel" or "separatory funnel" on the list -- I wonder if a gravy separator counts....

How about "Fred successfully petitioned to have his conviction expunged from Google so now when I put his name in it just show's that he's a former sports coach and camp director, sounds like a great guy to trust around my child."

Remember that the law in question does not give anyone some arbitrary and complete power of censorship.

For example, in the UK a conviction that leads to a prison sentence longer than four years never becomes spent under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, while convictions with shorter sentences eventually become spent after a period of time that depends on how serious the sentence was. Other things being equal, it seems likely that the "right to be forgotten" would not extend to allowing someone to r

It's no all fine, but what do you think you can do about it? The information won't just magically dissapear.

It's very hard for many people to distinguish between "It's magic because I'm ignorant and don't understand the technology behind it" and "It's magic, because it's not possible to do with known technology". If you give them the first one, but don't give them the second one, they want to know why you are withholding the magic they are rightfully entitled to have in the second case.

The people who fail to understand these things are also frequently the people who don't understand that a GPS equipped device is

What if you file a request for google to remove a link from a search result and they do that, but the info is still out there and they re index it later? Are they supposed to be eternally vigilant for filtering your pedo info?

There should be a balancing test between the public interest in a (true) fact and the privacy interests involved in its disclosure. There is negative public interest in having lists of credit card or Social Security numbers being published like that: the only real purpose is for fraud. On the contrary, there is clear and strong public interest in having someone's past run-ins with the law being available -- so that others can make an informed evaluation whether they want to deal with the person in questio

they lead us, head and shoulders, in privacy. only a fool would criticize privacy.

the internet does not trump the thousands of years of social morals and standards.

"just because you can, does not mean you SHOULD"

too much info is already there online. I'm all in favor of reeling a lot of it back, when it comes to ruining an innocent person's life. yes, we SHOULD think about mutual respect and not just say 'once its out there, its out there'. that's a cop-out and many people in the world are tired of that childish attitude.

I applaud europe for thinking about how society should work, not just letting the googles of the world dictate the 'new normal' to us.

When Google complies, who cares that somebody creates searchable lists? Even if it is Microsoft. For all practical purposes, it would have dissappeared. You are probably a software developer, making the edge case (the information is not gone) dominate the common case (google doesn't show it). That makes bad software, and also bad argumentation.

"Just because you *can* [make an ill-informed comment full of hackneyed phrases], does not mean you *should*."

For example, only a cretin would think that "privacy" means just one thing, and that an argument about one kind of privacy necessarily applies to other kinds of privacy. As a case in point, European data retention laws (pursuant to an EU directive) mean the governments there can snoop on citizens practically as much as they like. The governments regulate what companies can keep and share, but that

I'm European and do think that privacy is very valuable. I also think the decision was utterly retarded, ripe for abuse and obviously made by people who have no idea about technology.

So, what is Google supposed to erase from the web? An example is here [www.hs.fi] - in Finnish, I'm sorry, but I'll try to paraphrase a bit (you can run it through the translation service of your choice, if you wish). A person approached Helsingin Sanomat, a major Finnish newspaper, offering to be interviewed about why he wants his info removed from the web. He had committed some felonies a decade ago. He felt that he had already served his punishment (given how lenient our sentencing is, he most certainly has) and wanted a fresh start.

But the reporters dug a bit deeper into his life - turns out that there are ongoing court cases against him for both attempted fraud and fraud. After this was pointed out to him, he refused to be interviewed or his name associated with the article.

In this case, it was the reporters who found out about this. But they had only a single person to process. Should Google themselves figure out individually which claims have merit? Or should Google just automatically censor everything on request (let's face it, that's what this really is)? And most importantly, Google does not host the content. If there is an issue with the content, shouldn't one contact the content provider?

So you saying this is a case where Google should hide the results, right?

In a perfect world, those passing judgement would only pay attention to the facts brought into court for this particular case. But, due to the ease of searching on the web, jurors are much more likely to look and find information about his past behavior, thus tainting their judgement. So it is people with current legal troubles that are most in need of this kind of protection.

That sounds great in theory. It gets really difficult to enforce at an individual level. Particularly if you're trying to do so algorithmically.

Yeah google clearly has to try to stop people from finding out this guy's House was foreclosed on, and he had a tax debt, but how do they block just pages about this specific Mario Costeja GonzÃlez? I'm not saying it's impossible for them to do, or unreasonable for people to expect them to do it, it's just really hard to see how they pull it off.

Someone want to head the FCC? Lets erase all information about their involvement in the internet industry. Don't want to look biased toward the service providers.Someone wants to join an agriculture commission? Lets erase all information about their involvement in PITA. Don't want to look biased against the meat industry.Want to run for school board? Lets erase those annoying paedophilia convictions.

when it comes to ruining an innocent person's life.

There is a balance between privacy and the public's need to know. While we need to protect the innocent peopl

Privacy is about hiding what we do and who we really are. I guess there are two main reasons we may want to do that. The first is to avoid being a victim, which I think is fair enough. The second is to avoid punishment after doing something reprehensible, from a simple lie in order to obtain something we don't deserve to a serious crime, which I find hard to justify.

What's interesting is the reason we need privacy in order to not be a victim is because there are peopl

What a lovely Orwellian speak! This "right to be forgotten" is about forcing one entity to forget about another. This may sound find for the subject of the record, but it is, in fact, rather draconian, towards the record-keeper.

Whatever law applies to corporations (crosses himself, go away evil, evil!), would — or should — apply to individuals too. Would you like your ex-girlfriend to demand, you destroy the pictures the two of you took in happier tim

On the contrary, there is clear and strong public interest in having someone's past run-ins with the law being available -- so that others can make an informed evaluation whether they want to deal with the person in question.

You are contradicting yourself. How can you make an informed decision on that based on outdated information?

Europe seems to think that its citizenry is too stupid to make that kind of decision, and thus does not consider that there is public interest in making those facts available.

On the contrary, there is clear and strong public interest in having someone's past run-ins with the law being available -- so that others can make an informed evaluation whether they want to deal with the person in question.

You are contradicting yourself. How can you make an informed decision on that based on outdated information?

By giving them the opportunity to disclose any information about current criminal activities not previously recorded, in order to allow us to make a better decision? After all, it's their fault that the information is outdated, given their non-disclosure, and they're perfectly capable of correcting it for us, since they are the person in question.

Who are you to decide when information is outdated? If someone served ten years in prison for embezzlement, and got out ten years ago, that might not be relevant if they are trying to get a job as a software developer -- but if they're working on bank software, that might well become relevant, and if they want to work as a banker, you can be quite sure it is still relevant.

The US recognizes a tort called "false light invasion of privacy" that is very similar to lashon hara. However, it is frivolous to sug

On the contrary, there is clear and strong public interest in having someone's past run-ins with the law being available -- so that others can make an informed evaluation whether they want to deal with the person in question.

Please define "run-in with the law."

Here's the problem with your statement: loads of people are arrested every single day for stupid reasons and often without any real evidence of wrong-doing. Only some percentage of them are ultimately charged with a crime. And only an even smaller percentage are ever convincted.

Supposedly, in the United States, there is a right against "double jeopardy" or being tried again for the same crime once exonerated. A legal corollary to that is that you can't be punished more than once for the same offense. That right exists precisely to prevent malicious prosecution that could keep coming back and harassing someone or even ruining their character through repeated abuse of the legal system... even without sufficient evidence for conviction. It is designed to require the State to present its case, have a speedy trial, and then let the person alone again if it can't prove wrong-doing, so they can get on with their lives. And yet what you're advocating is effectively a private version of this sort of harassment: regardless of the legal outcome, we should be suspicious of those who have had "run-ins with the law."

We have media reports every day of people who are arrested and people who go to trial. Those initial bursts of media activity are usually the strongest. Unless it's a particularly gruesome or unusual trial, usually the media attention tapers off... and often we NEVER even hear about when the charges are dropped or the trial is stopped or the person is acquitted. If it does appear, it might be buried in a small short paragraph story, instead of the big headline that followed the arrest.

Media coverage thus gives an inaccurate and often even completely false portrayal of people who have had "run-ins with the law." In years past, the media coverage would have been lost except in some archive, requiring someone to dig through old stacks of papers or microfilm. Nowadays, it is often available instantly with the typing of a few characters on a computer.

There's a reason why we require people to swear an oath to tell "the whole truth" and not just "the truth." Even facts -- like person X was arrested or person Y went on trial -- can often be incredibly misleading without context of what happened later. So, even if you want to advocate that we should continue to be suspicious and punish those who have been CONVICTED of serious crimes after they have served their time (itself a questionable idea), there still is a legitimate interest in protecting the rights of those who were NOT convicted (or perhaps never even tried or even charged, for lack of evidence).

"Run-ins with the law" are not themselves a crime, and people should not be punished or have their reputation ruined for them.

I agree that the US justice system is too quick to arrest and prosecute people, and that many things are wrongly defined as crimes. If you want to fix that, then fix it -- don't try to make it worse by inventing more legal offenses that relate to pretending that something never happened. A search engine neither builds up nor ruins anyone's reputation.

I agree that the US justice system is too quick to arrest and prosecute people, and that many things are wrongly defined as crimes. If you want to fix that, then fix it

Yes, I agree it would be great to "fix it." But even if we stop a significant percentage of bad arrests and prosecutions, police are never going to be 100% sure when they have to arrest someone in a situation where there's a apparently significant safety threat. And prosecutors are never going to be 100% certain they'll get a guilty plea. Even if we don't arrest people for stupid laws, we'll still have errors and abuses of power.

So, even if we do the reform you suggest, we just reduce the frequency of the problem, but still have people whose names and reputations are ruined unnecessarily. You're never going to get a perfect system.

And as long as you have a free press, you'll have sensationalist journalism that's going to unfairly present those who have been arrested or accused. As far as I can tell, we have a few options:

(1) Attempt something like this "right to be forgotten" (which, by the way, I don't really think will work well)
(2) Have secret police and court proceedings (not good for anyone -- will lead to more abuse rather than less)
(3) Severely restrict freedom of the press and publishing information about people arrested or accused (not good for general freedom, also likely to lead to abuse)
(4) Force news media to run equivalent levels of coverage refuting their accusations when charges are dropped or someone is acquitted (never gonna happen, and nobody will pay attention anyway)
(5) Actively begin investigating and prosecuting people who are suspected of discriminating against those who have had a "run in with the law" but were never convicted or charged (again, unlikely to happen)

I'm open to other ideas. These all sound pretty impossible to me, and some sound stupid. But perhaps trying to let someone who was never charged or convicted of a crime to attempt to ensure that news stories about an erroneous arrest aren't the top search engine link is one small concession, and probably the least worrisome as a threat to other freedoms. I don't know.

You are overthinking this problem, and you are (incorrectly) imaging search engines to have magical reputation-ruining powers.

If someone is arrested, and charges are later dropped, the simplest and best solution is to have publishers update their earlier stories to note the new developments. That is in the interest of the public (who see more up-to-date information), the publisher (who doesn't get a reputation for staleness), and the person who was arrested (who gets more visibility for being cleared), so

Supposedly, in the United States, there is a right against "double jeopardy" or being tried again for the same crime once exonerated. A legal corollary to that is that you can't be punished more than once for the same offense. That right exists precisely to prevent malicious prosecution that could keep coming back and harassing someone or even ruining their character through repeated abuse of the legal system... even without sufficient evidence for conviction. It is designed to require the State to present its case, have a speedy trial, and then let the person alone again if it can't prove wrong-doing, so they can get on with their lives.

Someone should inform Carmen M. Ortiz and Stephen P. Heymann about this. And, you know, brong Aaron Swartz back to life, by way of apology.

As a practical matter, the common practice of overzealous overcharging of defendants in order to force them into a plea bargain on some subset of the charges is a straight extension and outgrowth of the civil rights reforms of the 1940's, 1950's, and 1960's.

The issue came down to their being no federal statute against murder, and several states unwillingness to convict

"Double jeopardy" in the US is not intended to prevent people from being tried twice if they are found innocent once. It's specifically intended to keep a single level of government from repeatedly trying somebody for the same crime. This means that if you are accused of kidnapping someone in South Dakota, and the body is found in North Dakota, you could be tried three different times. Once by each Dakota, and a third time by the Feds. The protection does what the founders intended it to do quite well: no P

In the UK, the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act means that past offences get wiped from your record after a certain period of time depending on the nature of the offence. In some cases, it is never wiped from your record.

I think one of the troubles here is the difference between "YOUR record" and "THE record". I'm not a UK citizen, but I would be surprised if the relevant court records are somehow expunged. Are they? And with the database-driven information environment that we live in, how do we create a workable difference between "your record" and "the record" for private handling of public information.

Europe seems to think that its citizenry is too stupid to make that kind of decision

This is the natural position of the Social Democratic Left which runs Europe. It's the same tendency that you see here in the United States in President Obama, the Democratic Party and liberals in general. They believe that the people are too stupid to decide their own lives and therefore it's not only right but necessary to remove from them the "burden" of making their own choices, healthcare being a prime example, for their own good; Even if that means that personal freedoms or individual liberty must be

We've got this thing in UK called Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. This plainly states that when a conviction is deemed "spent" (depends on offence for the timescale, some offences never expire of course) then that it deemed to have never happened in the first place. This can even include being sent to prison. Any use of that information is prohibited and there is no upper limit for a fine that can be imposed for doing so. Plus, use of that information will get you sued for libel, which you will lose and lose badly.

We've got this thing in the rest of the world called George Orwell's 1984. This plainly discusses what happens when government gets broad powers to define which beliefs and statements are acceptable and which are punishable by law.

Some US states have similarly worded laws, but our court system (wisely) recognizes that the "deemed to have never happened" idea is limited to how that state's government (and localities within that state) may treat the person, and that these laws cannot prevent other private pa

I'm sorry but if you can sue me for libel for just for stating the fact that you have a "spent" conviction then the law is messed up. This is where we start to get into the fundamental nature of freedom of speech and how it relates even to freedom of thought. (Am I required to be lobotomized if I remember you have been convicted of a spent conviction. Maybe you should actually READ 1984.) I can understand laws that prohibit discrimination or harrassment based on old convictions, but trying to legislate

So, when people in the US publish lists of credit card numbers or social security numbers (or whatever is the newest hobby on the US interwebz), it's all fine and dandy because it's speaking the truth?

This situation does not fall under the new legislation domain. There is already a multitude of laws dealing with this exact problem.

By definition a victim of paedophilia is protected not because they a victim of pedo crimes, but because they are a minor. I definitely support the protection of the privacy of minors, as do many others, and this is why there are already many laws world-wide that protect the identity of children.

umm no, just as you seek to protect pedos that were convicted many years ago, there are many pedo victims that are no longer minors, but face the horror of having these acts thrown in their faces over and over again.

As for the paedophile, him or her will have committed their crime and been punished for it. Once they have done their time in goal (or otherwise, as deemed appropriate by a court of law) then they deserve the same rights as everyone else.

the fact that you try to shield pedos is disgusting. these people cannot be rehabilitated and every parent should know where pedos live around them. Actually US already provides this info with handy maps. Once I had a really creepy neighbor move in and I looked him up there but did not find any

And not everyone agrees on the definition of privacy, what qualifies as "inadequate, irrelevant, or no longer relevant", or what to do with misleading information.

A friend was recently arrested for sexual acts on a child at a daycare. Neither the newspaper nor the police department cared that there were witnesses that say it couldn't have happened. They didn't care that it took years for it to come up from a child who almost certainly was too young to even remember what happened that many years ago. They didn't care that the father had some longstanding beef with the daycare he worked at. Nope, they just wanted to plaster my friend's name and face across the internet and newspapers. The result? Death threats, loss of job, losing his and his parents' savings for bail... yeah, basically turning the life around of one of the (morally) best people I've ever known, without justification and without apology.

Under civil systems, inquisitorial systems, making any kind of false claim to the police results in a criminal trial where the claimant can get huge penalties. We don't have that in our common law / adversarial system but we could introduce it if people wanted. If you think it is a good idea push for it.

That's all very well, but you're talking about someone whose life is being destroyed right now. Starting a slow process so no-one else will suffer a similar fate in a decade or two is great, but woefully inadequate for the problem at hand (to which some degree of solution should already be available in most western democracies, via some version of wrongful arrest law and some version of defamation law, both of which should be designed for exactly these kinds of circumstances).

Perhaps the single most important argument for why defamation laws should exist at all is that once someone's reputation has been tainted, often no apology or correction can ever truly undo all the damage. This is also, IMHO, a strong argument for not allowing anyone to be named as a suspect or defendant in a criminal case prior to at least having them charged with something, or preferably having them properly convicted by a competent court.

If the situation with the GP's friend really was as described, then neither the police nor the media were behaving in a neutral, acceptable way, and both should be dealt with accordingly. And then the individual's public record should quite rightly be cleansed and the unproven allegations "forgotten", which is the whole point of the European legal position we're talking about.

Look, I'm as anti-pedophile as anyone you will ever find. That said, we have to use common sense methods for tracking them and managing them because rehabilitation does not work very often with that type of person. An Internet search company is not the police, they can't do anything to protect society from a pedophile (or any other type of criminal). You can't hold an Internet search company responsible for data that is flat out wrong. According to TFA 88% of the people requesting data be removed are NO

It's pretty basic knowledge, at least to me, that if you want to ruin someone, just fabricate some pedo evidence regarding them. Law enforcement just jumps on that stuff at even the slightest suggestion someone might be up to it. Just being accused is enough to ruin most people's lives.

For the computer savvy, this is even easier to do if you can gain access to your target's computer(s). And I would suspect it's really hard to prove your innocence if accused. And in my opinion, this is one of those crime

The fundamental flaw in all this is that Google is not a big website full of content that they publish. Google indexes content on other websites. If someone wants to use the state to force others not to publish truthful information about them (questionable in itself), then let them go after those doing the publishing. Google is the wrong target.

G+ is a counterexample only to the extent that individuals posting to G+ are Google employees acting within the scope of that employment. In the same way that Facebook isn't liable when its users upload defamatory or infringing content (because they have a way to handle complaints), Google isn't automatically liable when third parties post information to G+ or Blogger or wherever else.

Google is certainly the wrong target, but they are very well placed to capitalise on any forthcoming law. The correct way of dealing with content is, with sufficient justification, to require that it is removed from the sites. Who knows better than Google where that content is? What better influence to comply with such requirements than "you may be removed from Google". Search engines are in prime position to capitalise on any sort of mandate to remove or issue take-down notices provided there's a small

An analogy is credit rating - they don't lend the money but they have influence over those that do. You need to clear your name with the agency not the lender.

What kind of analogy is this??

(1) The present scenario concerning the "right to be forgotten" has to do with deleting factual information from a database, whereas you can't get factual information deleted from your credit report. You can only get errors corrected.

(2) The credit reporting agencies don't really "have influence over" lenders. They are responsible for providing accurate information, but it's not like they can strong-arm a lender into making changes to their records.

That's what I find so strange about this ruling. Search engines like Google have to remove links to certain articles, but newspapers and journalists are explicitly protected when publishing said articles.

The ruling is insane. If the EU really wants to implement this insanity the best way would be for the sites hosting the article to include a 'do not index' meta tag which Google would then respect. Doing it that way places the burden where it belongs - on the author of the stories, not on the search engine.

Going after the URLs directly at Google is a total exercise in a whack a mole since the links are always changing. You're just going to end up with another pile of automated systems generating millions o

Heck, I can even see source sites generating automated ways to combat this. Continuously keep poking Google to reindex your site. When you see the Google crawler insert meaningless random tidbits into the URLs. Now the other side of the robot war will keep issuing takedowns on these randomized URLs but since there is a cycle time of a week or so you will always have a set of working URLs in the Google index.

In the court case that triggered this change in policy, the original publisher was also targeted, and the court found that they had a right to continue publishing the information. The same court found that Google had no legitimate interest in linking to those web pages. You're being either ignorant or deceptive to suggest that the concern here is that Google is continuing to carry stale data.

The UK and most of Europe is unlike the US in that once convicted criminals that have been punished, unless of a particularly serious crime, there are laws protecting their rights to not have that information disclosed, so that they can resume a normal job or whatever in society.

With the US system of throwing more people into prison per capita than pretty much any other country, and also that in the US such things are permanently on your record, it can only make it much harder for ex-cons to ever find work again and resume a lawful life. The system is self-defeating in making it much more likely that ex-cons actually have no option but to turn back to crime to even make a living.

The problem with Google is that they are clearly assuming that US law/mindset should operate worldwide. Google need to get over themselves and make sure their information retention follows the same rehabilitation law that exists already to protect the rights of ex-offenders, for a very good reason.

IMHO we should have the right to control any and all information about us that is stored by corporations. We should also be able to force them to disclose all the info they do store about us. In fact the whole question of who owns that information should be determined. I beleive if the information is about you, then you should own it and so have full control of it.

What qualifies as a serious crime? If someone is convicted of stealing client funds, and they go to jail for a decade, are they allowed to walk right back into handling other people's money once they get out? Europeans needs to get over themselves and realize that some parts of the world contain people who are able to make their own judgments about who is trustworthy, for a very good reason.

Also, the facts that the US criminal justice system is rigged against defendants, that it severely punishes a lot of

I just don't follow this reasoning. We're talking about truthful, factual, and legitimate content. If you were a reporter reporting facts, why should I have the "God-given right" to determine what you write about me? Why should I be able to take down a link to an article that I don't hold the copyright to? I shouldn't, because I (or anyone else) don't own "facts" about you. This is a really slippery slope, my friend.

1. Keep information from being disclosed.2. Remove information from the web.

If it is important that the information is kept secret then it should not be on the web to begin with. I'm totally fine with 1. up to a point. But 2. terrifies me, that's an extremely slipper slope we're going down there.

You are aiming at the wrong target. Google blindly indexes what it finds on the web. The right solution was for the EU to require the sites hosting the source articles to include a "do not index" meta tag which Google would then respect. Put this burden where it belongs - on the author of the stories, not the search engine.

Why should Google care at all? They only search websites and return search results. Think of them as a common carrier. They don't create the data, they only catalog and organize the data - sorta like maintaining and publishing a phone book.

Google isn't publishing criminal records, only showing users where those records are. What part of this is Google's fault?

The problem with Google is that they are clearly assuming that US law/mindset should operate worldwide. Google need to get over themselves and make sure their information retention follows the same rehabilitation law that exists already to protect the rights of ex-offenders, for a very good reason.

I don't understand -- how is Google "assuming" this? As far as I can tell, Google's explicit assumptions are as follows: (1) there is an internet, (2) it has information on it, (3) there should be an index of that information.

I don't see how any of this implies that Google is "assuming" anything about US law or anything about the rights of ex-offenders.

If information is so defaming to a person's character that it should be eliminated from an index, shouldn't that information be deleted from the primary

You're going towards this completely backwards. The European approach to this is not that it should be impossible for people to find out the past history of other people, it should simply require effort.

The intent of this law is simply to make sure that when someone googles your name, then your past criminal record is not the first result on your search history. If someone wants to find out your criminal record, they're still perfectly free to ask for it as it remains a public record.

You're going towards this completely backwards. The European approach to this is not that it should be impossible for people to find out the past history of other people, it should simply require effort.

I completely understand what the European approach is here, and I didn't say I disagreed with it. I do disagree that Google is somehow the primary responsible party, however -- which the post I was responding to claimed. It's not like Google is deliberately trying to flout privacy laws -- it's just indexing information. If we want to rein them in, then we should, but let's not pretend they're doing this maliciously or deliberately trying to avoid some sort of "rights."

I think that much of your confusion comes from this idea of responsibility. It's not that google did anything wrong by indexing the information in question, google is still free to index anything relevant just like newspapers are free to publish anything relevant.

When someone is sentenced by court, the newspaper is allowed to publish that information and google is allowed to index it, someone googling that information at that point in time is supposed to be able to find that information. Some years later wh

I think that much of your confusion comes from this idea of responsibility. It's not that google did anything wrong by indexing the information in question

Umm, I think you're the one who is "confused." Let's assume some good faith here, huh? I'm NOT the one making any claim that Google is responsible. Again, here is the quotation I originally was responding to in the OP:

The problem with Google is that they are clearly assuming that US law/mindset should operate worldwide. Google need to get over themselves and make sure their information retention follows the same rehabilitation law that exists already to protect the rights of ex-offenders, for a very good reason.

It was the OP who was overly concerned with Google's "assumptions" and apparent motives adhering to a "US mindset" or whatever. I was just responding to that.

When someone is sentenced by court, the newspaper is allowed to publish that information and google is allowed to index it, someone googling that information at that point in time is supposed to be able to find that information. Some years later when that sentencing is no longer relevant the newspaper is still out there and can be accessed in archives, however the information is no longer to be actively published. This is the point in time where people are now allowed to require google to stop indexing that content.

I'm not an idiot. I understand perfectly well what the court ruling says, and I actually agree that it is a good first step. What

This is a little bit different from the 'unlisted number' situation that you mention. At least in the U.S. you have a contractual relationship with the phone company to supply phone service, and you're presumably paying an extra fee to have an unlisted number. There is no third party involved (such as google), just you and the phone company.

But, as I mentioned, there are plenty of online databases of phone numbers now (for example). If you were paying for a phone company to keep your number private, but they kept just releasing it to whoever wanted it (including the online databases), we shouldn't just find fault in the online database, no? The phone company is also responsible for giving out information it isn't supposed to, correct?

The GP was arguing that people have some sort of "right" to keep some of this older information private if

as someone who battles on a daily basis with the sins of my past ( nowadays even women i try to date run criminal background checks ), i don't see how this effort is going to really help anyone.the way they think it is.

there are all sorts of FREE sites that dish the public information that these people are trying to block Google from aggregating, and the moment these privacy invaders realize Google no longer is a valid source for getting the info their paranoia craves, they will find another site that does.

you are living under a proverbial pre-interwebz rock if you think this Google opt-out form is going to prevent the people are are interesting in screening and snooping from learning things from your background like felony convictions and such.

The thing is (if I've understood this correctly) they (the other publicly available information sources) will also be bound by the "right to privacy".

This will probably result in a new industry - private, pay-for-play sites which provide the same information. It's not freely available, and one line in the TOS to the effect that the information gathered there is not to be published or disseminated should cover the pay site's interests nicely. The data will be available to paying customers only, making it

The Europeans are playing 'cat and mouse' with a gorilla - a very smart gorilla, I might add. Regulating search engines is the most obvious way to attack this issue at a centralized point, but as you've pointed out the data will still be out there on one or many more other loci; only now it'll take more effort to identify all of the places where that data exists.

you put what i was trying to say in a much more eloquent way than I...bravo...i couldn't agree more.

there are all sorts of FREE sites that dish the public information that these people are trying to block Google from aggregating

Not in Europe. Credit agencies are strictly controlled (the original case was a guy who was bankrupt years ago). Criminal records are not public information. Employers can ask the police to confirm what you tell them about any criminal record, but if the conviction is spent you don't have to tell them about it and that's that.

More over commercial entities are not allowed to store data about an individual unless they have some genuine reason to, and only for a limited period of time. The individual has the r

What is with this obsession for using pedophiles to justify the erosion of rights and privacy? No, don't answer that, it was a rhetorical question.

Pedophiles are no worse than rapists, murderers and other criminals that cause physical harm to others. In fact I would rate them as a lower threat than murderers. How come we consider pedophiles so reprehensible that we go out of our way to ruin their lives forever yet we don't think twice about doing the same for a murderers or serially violent criminals? Should I have the right to know if my neighbor was in jail for killing someone? Shouldn't I be aware that someone in my neighborhood was jailed for beating a man to within an inch of his life? They don't respect life any more than a pedophile.

And the most idiotic aspect of registering sex offenders is we just lump everyone together. Sex offences can be everything from getting caught pissing on the bushes (your willy is hanging out), mooning someone (yes it is indecent exposure), a 16 y/o having consensual sex with an 18 y/o (statutory rape), right up to full blown violent 1978 "I spit on your grave" rape. So registry maps are full of useless noise.

Lets take it a step further and also make public a list of people who have: been arrested for drug possession, burglary, prostitution, and assault. This way we can all live in fear of our neighbors. Sounds great right?

I realize the EU is probably different than the US but every time this crap rolls around idiots start yammering about pedophiles and children.

I'm going to spend some time on this, so you would do well to read along. You have a knee-jerk response which strays from pedophiles to sex offender registry to argument ad absurdum, and it's not even clear if you point is "I'm a raging pedophile and don't like being singled out", or more likely "I'm on the sex offender registry for peeing in a parking garage", or if you are making some point about privacy. So here's everything you need to know, so that you can make a more coherent post next time.

Exactly. If you fill out a form to ask Google to forget about you, all that'll happen, most likely, is that Google will have another piece of information about you - that you don't want information about you to be made public.

Sure they'll remove stuff about your from their search results, but rest assured *they* won't erase anything. Information on people is much too valuable to waste, just because something as trivial as the law says they must delete it.

"The right to be forgotten" requires a great imposition on others. If I observed you in a cafe, what would it take for you to assert your right to be forgotten? Why is it any different in the case of a group of individuals or a corporation?

My memory of you is part of my identity, something you have no right to.

The pedo's problem is easy. He has no right to be forgotten. When you commit a crime and are properly convicted, you give up some rights. At least that's how it is in the US. If you're a felon you lose the right to vote, bear arms, etc. even after you're out of prison. You might be able to get them back, but they're no longer rights. You have to work to get them back.

So. If Europe has any laws about sex offender notification they should trump the right to be forgotten. If they don't have such laws,

In general I disagree with the idea of a "right to be forgotten". Rather than trying to "forget" the past pretend that all that embarrassing and/or illegal stuff never happened, how about if we all grow up and, as a society recognize that people do dumb shit and can actually change over time. You shouldn't have the "right" to track down and burn all the copies of photos of you smoking weed that you happily plastered all over your Facebook page when you were in college. It happened, and if someone still ha

Google probably has to attempt to comply with this law. It has extensive operations in Europe. That will probably result in a lot of information that people would like to have being unavailable through Google. This will probably include a lot of legitimate info, as misusers learn how to game the system.

On the other hand, DuckDuckGo, appears to be a US only operation. Because of the
SPEECH Act [gpo.gov], DuckDuckGo could probably ignore European demands. A judgement against DuckDuckGo would be difficult to enforce.

What happened to "having paid your debt to society" ? Stop listening to the prison industry.

Also, "30% were about pedophiles" doesn't tell you anything. Quite a few accusations into that direction are false, sometimes mislead and sometimes intentionally fraudulent, because there's no easier way to ruin a man's life than having his face in the papers with the word "pedophile" next to it. And more often than not, when the court case reveals that everything was made up and doesn't have one leg to stand on, the papers won't report that on the front page. And if someone googles for it, they are much more likely to find something saying you are a pedophile than the tiny page-20 posting that said actually no, you aren't.

If you're wrongly accused of a crime, you absolutely have every right to have that forgotten. In fact, this is probably the prime example as to why we need such a right.

I completely understand that a lot of people rightfully wish to have some things removed. The problem is the risks that is included with this kind of legislation. Being able to demand that public information about you is removed solely because you don't like it is a gigantic door-opener for all kinds of future abuse.

What kind of "abuse" are you imagining here? The proper procedure for judging people is a trial and a courthouse, not the Internet. And negative stuff about people on the Internet has a roughly 50/50 chance of being made up anyways.

Are you for real? I have to make judgements about people all of the time, pretty much everyone not living as a hermit does. I don't have the luxury of dragging them to a courthouse and putting them in front of a jury when I need to make those judgements. If we can't base those judgements by what kind of a person have they been, what do you suggest? Perhaps some of the old fallbacks, like the color of their skin or how much they profess to love god?

If we can't base those judgements by what kind of a person have they been, what do you suggest?

Going by facts instead of rumours, you jerk!

There is nothing simpler than accusing someone of a crime they didn't commit, and in the case of pedophilia, that is guaranteed to ruin a man's life and very likely to end his career. And now you want to judge him in the future as well, good job.

You want to base your judgement of a persons character on Internet searches and on things that they did years ago, wtf?

Have you heard about actually talking to people, and creating your own judgement from personal interact

What is this intended for?So, let's assume your submit the form to google and you are successfully removed, what does happen??

You are a EU citizen, and anybody using any Europe located IP, will not see the info you wanted to be removed in a search they do. Cool, so you won't see yourself appearing on the pages you search for...Except that...People outside Europe will still see relevant results without any problem. The info is not removed or blacklisted in google, it just doesn't appear into european search

The Court points out that the data subject may address such a request directly to the operator of the search engine (the controller) which must then duly examine its merits. Where the controller does not grant the request, the data subject may bring the matter before the supervisory authority or the judicial authority so that it carries out the necessary checks and orders the controller to take specific measures accordingly.

Google would be required to rule on the voracity of the request or defend themselves in court. Do you really think that is Google's job?

The main stupidity of this ruling is that it says that posting the information is OK.

The AEPD rejected the complaint against La Vanguardia, taking the view that the information in question had been lawfully published by it.

but Google has to remove references to it.

On the other hand, the complaint was upheld as regards Google Spain and Google Inc

So it is OK to post the information but not OK to facilitate the information being found. I find those positions in opposition.

Some years after a criminal finishes jail time, he has the right to be forgiven and reintegrated a s a normal citizen, just like he had done nothing at all. It has been like that in many European countries for decades if not centuries, it helps one-time criminals to get back to the life of an abiding citizen. This new regulation is applying this to the new situation that appeared with the Internet.

Because the search engines have operations and sales in Europe, and so can be made to comply, some of the hosting sites may be outside the European court's jurisdiction. Also its an easier shot than a newspaper, which probably has lawyers ready and well versed in public interest arguments - and would almost certainly publish about their success as well as reminding people about the original incident if the succeeded.